October 30, 2013 11:01 PM CDTOctober 31, 2013 08:11 AM CDT26-year-old is new principal of Dallas' high school for the gifted

26-year-old is new principal of Dallas' high school for the gifted

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G.J. McCarthy/Staff Photographer

Principal Ben Mackey (left) joins a game with students Dillan Vance (center) and Michael Nelms after school at Dallas ISD’s School for the Talented and Gifted. “So much is going right at the school,” Mackey said.

Ben Mackey blends in at Dallas ISD’s School for the Talented and Gifted. With his youthful looks, he could easily be a student.

Mackey is 26. And he’s the new principal of the district’s top high school, the nationally recognized magnet known as TAG that draws from among the district’s brightest students.

He’s the youngest principal in DISD. To put his age in perspective, some of his students were in kindergarten when he was in eighth grade. And some faculty members are old enough to be his grandparents.

But Mackey comes with glowing recommendations and a master’s degree in school leadership from Harvard University. The former TAG principal and the head of the school’s Parent Teacher Student Association say he is committed, enthusiastic and passionate about education.

“He’s got some special talents,” said F. Michael Satarino, who retired after 16 years as TAG principal. “Age is not something that is going to make you a great principal; neither are all the degrees in China. You have to have the talent, the energy and the commitment to do the work, because it is a lot of work.”

A first-year principal with four years in the education field, Mackey is still feeling his way. He admits it was intimidating at first to lead one of the nation’s top-ranked public high schools.

“It’s not lost on me, the magnitude of this job,” he said, adding that he reaches out to Satarino for advice.

Mackey is among 63 new principals in the district this school year. The number of principals under age 40 increased this year, from 45 to 73, according to latest figures. Mackey is the only 20-something; the next two youngest are 30.

Superintendent Mike Miles, who began running DISD last year, welcomes young people in leadership positions, even in his own Cabinet. His first human resources chief, Charles Glover, was 29 — overseeing a district with about 20,000 employees. Glover was replaced by Carmen Darville, who is 29.

Miles said that principal candidates go through rigorous screening. It includes various exercises and tasks and an appearance before a panel of district administrators, a school faculty member, parent representatives, and a student representative if at the high school level. Miles said he looks at leadership, decision-making and competency.

“I try to see if people have the leadership capacity to help the school grow,” Miles said. “And sometimes just because somebody is younger doesn’t mean they don’t have good ideas. I don’t have a bias with regard to experience one way or the other.”

Miles said that as baby boomers retire, there will be a younger crop of teachers and principals. “Is that a good or bad thing?” he said. “There’s something to be said for some experience. It really depends on the school and the community.”

Miles said Mackey’s critical thinking skills and innovativeness helped tip the scale in his favor. But he cautioned that it’s early in the school year and that Mackey shouldn’t be judged too quickly.

Still, Veronica Bell, the school’s PTSA president, said so far so good. “His mission is to challenge every single one of those kids and figure out what their passion is,” she said.

Mackey is younger than anyone on his 23-person staff at TAG. The oldest, a teacher, is 69. On a recent day, the age difference didn’t seem to matter as classes got underway.

Mackey walked the halls greeting students, many of them by name. He occasionally dished out advice, such as telling a student with an energy drink: “That is unhealthy for you.” Another student was spotted carrying a plastic prop knife, and Mackey promptly took it away.

Some might say that an exemplary school teeming with the district’s brightest students can run itself. But not so, Satarino says. He said that the school needs a leader who fights for every second of class time and makes sure teachers aren’t bogged down in meetings or tedious matters.

“Great teachers are high maintenance,” Satarino said.

He said the true judgment of Mackey’s tenure will come at the end of the school year and will be based on national merit finalists and the number of teachers who stick around. This school year, 100 percent of the TAG teachers returned.

DISD trustee Lew Blackburn, whose district includes the magnet schools at Townview Center, joked that he tried not to look surprised when he met Mackey. He said it is a good sign that he hasn’t heard complaints from TAG parents, who can be quite protective of the school.

Mackey plans to do a lot of assessing in his first school year. “It’s not wise to just jump in and make changes blindly,” he said. “So much is going right at the school.”

He didn’t start out in education. He has bachelor’s degrees in finance and history from the University of Florida in Gainesville. But he didn’t want to go into finance or didn’t know of many careers in history. He says he felt robbed because he didn’t know what he wanted to be.

That changed when he attended a job fair in his senior year and visited a booth for Teach for America, a popular teacher recruiting program that he’d heard about. He joined the organization in 2009 and worked for three years at a high school in rural Mississippi.

Mackey left West Bolivar High School in Rosedale, Miss., before Joe Griffin became principal there, but Griffin said Mackey’s good reputation lives on. Mackey was a math teacher, the math department chairman and the 2010-11 Teacher of the Year.

“He left a legend here,” Griffin said. “The kids loved him, and he had good test scores.”

Mackey left West Bolivar in 2012 and went to Harvard for a master’s degree in school leadership. As part of that program, he completed a principal internship last school year at Codman Academy Charter Public School in Dorchester, Mass. He spent 20 hours a week at the charter school with a focus on interviewing teachers and gathering data to determine best practices.

Mackey said he was attracted to Dallas ISD’s education reform efforts.

Bell, the head of the PTSA, said Mackey’s parents live in the area and that connects him to it as well. “He’s just a super fit,” she said. “And the fact that he wants to be here for a long time means a lot.”

Mackey was hired in July at a base salary of $99,960.

Asked where he sees himself in five years, he pointed to the floor in his office.

Follow Tawnell D. Hobbs on Twitter at @tawnell.

DISD principals

Ages of DISD principals this school year and last school year. The number of principals under age 40 increased in 2013-14, while those over 40 decreased.

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